Hi Max, Here is what I found when I accessed the NPR home page with Window-Eyes 8.2 and Firefox 22.0. After using Tab to navigate to the Listen link in the main navigation, I pressed Tab one more time and Window-Eyes reports Listen again. When Window-Eyes reports Listen the second time, I actually was focused on the Hourly News element which NVDA reports as getNewsCast. Pressing Enter opened the media player in a new window and the news stream began to play. The explanation of why Window-Eyes cannot accurately report the name of this element is based on the way the element was coded.
Here is an example of how a link element should be coded based on HTML standards (you will need to arrow through this text or turn on punctuation to get all of the details): <a href="http://www.gwmicro.com";>Home</a> This is an example of a HTML anchor element that is used to link to another web page. Window-Eyes looks at the anchor text, "Home", and that is what is spoken to the user when the link is focused. The anchor text is the text found between the opening and closing anchor tags (i.e. <a>, </a>). If this were a perfect world, all web developers would follow this convention and you would always receive accurate link names from your screen reader when browsing the web. But regretfully, that isn't reality and web developers will continue to use different types of techniques to create web page anchor elements and often times not follow the HTML coding standards and conventions that have been established by the World Wide Web Consortium (WC3). The anchor element for the Hourly News on NPR's home page is coded as follows: <a class="hourlyNews" data-metrics="{"action":"Play Hourly News","label":"navigation","category":"News Navigation"}" data-action="Play Hourly News" href="javascript:getNewsCast();"></a> You will notice that there is no anchor text present. This is why Window-Eyes is not able to accurately tell you the link name because it really doesn't have one. We are currently enhancing the web support in Window-Eyes so that when an anchor element such as this is encountered, instead of only looking for anchor text, we will also look at the anchor's attributes in an effort to find an appropriate link name for the element. The developer could also have chosen to use ARIA properties (Accessible Rich Internet Application) to label the element and make it more accessible but they didn't. So, they developer could have done a better job of making this content accessible and we certainly are working on finding ways to work around the poor coding and design techniques being used by web developers. On a related note, you have observed that NVDA actually pulls the getNewsCast text from the "href" attribute of the anchor element and speaks it when you tab to the element. This feedback is obviously more helpful than speaking the anchor text from a previous link but it still does not match the information that is presented visually on the webpage that sighted users see (i.e. Hourly News). So, if you would have asked a sighted user to help you find the getNewsCast link, they would have been scratching their head as to what you were referring to since that text is not displayed anywhere on the webpage. <grin> I hope you find this information helpful and now you should have a better idea about what gives with these puppies! Best Regards, Marc Subject: Tabbing Right Past Some Links From: "Max G. Swanson" <[email protected]> Date: Mon, 5 Aug 2013 15:23:44 -0500 Reply-To: [email protected] Using Firefox 22.0 and Win7 I'm noticing something strange. The tab key blows right past certain links. On <NPR.org> I cannot tab to "Get Newscast." I must tab to News or Arts&Life, then ARROW down to "Get Newscast." IN NPR's emails the link "Read Story" acts the same, though there's a long link below it that is picked up when tabbing and might take one to the same place. Hate to say this, but NVDA does pick these phantoms up in the usual sequence of things. Please note that these don't get voiced as on-clicks or "Clickable", but as a link. I guess that to balance these off, we have the links you can tab to but won't respond even to Ctrl.-Enter. Seriously what gives with these puppies? -- "Americans must know the basic architecture of programs designed to protect them."(Senator Franken.) Regards, Max. If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list and your message is related to GW Micro, then please consider sending your message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo. You can manage your list subscription at http://www.gwmicro.com/listserv.
